Gangstas, Doctas and Disappearing Cheese

The Letlhabile upper primary students welcome you to an update from Helen O'Grady Botswana. Here, they have just finished their performance of a TV commercial for an overseas holiday. After such energetic publicity I'd go on that holiday - wouldn't you?









I would rather not go to this imposing doctor though. Scary.











Incredibly, this family of gangsters has stolen some cheese. Not much remorse here! That's Legae Youth Theatre students for you.






The planning of a performance. It's wonderful to see how engaged and enthusisatic these students are. And the performances were great.

Look at this for variety. The faces say it all. The Baobab students brilliantly convey emotion through facial expression.





Northside upper primary acting up in the gym. Who's that at the back?

As usual the last word goes to Legae Academy's new Head Girl. Bossy or what? There's no acting going on in this photo. She's just like that naturally!

The Helen O'Grady Drama Academy in Botswana continues to attract more and more students. For further information check out botswana@dramaafrica.com. Thanks for visiting the blog. More shortly.

Drama at Legae Youth Theatre and Baobab Primary School

Term 2 is well underway and our students are throwing themselves into drama. The response to our publicity (especially the assemblies we have done) has been overwhelming. Long may it continue.

The Youth Theatre students seen here are preparing and performing an improvisation called 'Wagons West'. No script, just a couple of specific directives relating to plot and character. A challenge for those in the group who were new to drama but they did a fantastic job!

The Baobab Upper Primary session had to be moved from a classroom to the School Hall because of the number of students. I'll have to split this group! We had great fun with the introductory activities. Honestly, there were some way over the top deaths from a gas-filled yellow ball (you had to be there).

The Drama Academy strives to make the students' experience fun from beginning to end. Do these guys look like they are having fun or what?

More updates from Letlhabile, Legae Primary and Northside coming soon.

Helen O'Grady Botswana At The Southern Cross Holiday Camp

For the past two weeks Helen O'Grady Botswana has been involved in the Southern Cross Holiday camp for youngsters in Gaborone. And what a successful event it was.







As the new principal I was keen to employ the techniques I will be using next term, and, as you can see, the children certainly enjoyed their experience.

One of the highlights of the week came during this game of 'Mummies' (the one where you wrap each other in toilet paper). At the beginning of the game I asked the group why we didn't look like mummies. Of course, someone said 'Because we're boys'.






Throughout, I was helped by our teaching assistants, Tumi, Hiral, One and Panfi who got involved in the drama and even had their faces painted!




































Despite many of the children being younger than those normally taught by Helen O' Grady we gave a performance to parents at the end of each week. We also demonstrated the kinds of techniques such as introductory activities and snippets which work so well throughout the term.